Hu Shanwei was getting nervous when a petite girl with a round face and big eyes at the next table raised her hand and said, "I... I want to go to the toilet."
As soon as these words were spoken, the women who wanted to take the exam raised their hands one after another. The female official in charge of the exam ordered the young palace maids to lead them to the palace rooms one by one.
Hu Shanwei looked at the nervous female candidates who were queuing up to use the restroom, and thought to himself, this exam will determine your entire life. I'm nervous, and so are others. Since I'm here, I might as well take the exam.
When a drum sounded, the test papers were handed out one by one.
Hu Shanwei unfolded the test paper and looked at the questions first.
Three questions on the meaning of the Four Books:
1. People can promote the Tao, but they cannot promote people.
2. Therefore, a gentleman is cautious about what he does not see and fearful of what he does not hear.
3. This is true for all things, but especially for the mind.
Each question should be more than 300 words.
This was only the first test paper, which tested the understanding of the Four Books. Hu Shanwei opened the second one, which tested the meaning of the Five Classics, two questions each, for a total of ten questions.
The third test paper tested four books, namely, "Nujie", "Nu Lunyu", "Lienu Zhuan" and "Nuze", with one question from each book.
There were seventeen questions in total, thirteen of which were about the Four Books and Five Classics, and only four questions were about women's behavioral norms. This shows that the main requirement for female officials was the mastery of Confucian classics, with talent being the main requirement.
Hu Shanwei browsed through the test questions and spread out the second test paper which tested the contents of the Five Classics. She started with the two questions from the Spring and Autumn Annals that she was most familiar with. The first question was about the people of Qi attacking the Shanrong, and the second was about the meeting between the Duke of Jin and the Prince of Wu at Huangchi.
Hu Shanwei wrote: "The Shanrong attacked the State of Yan, and the State of Yan appealed to Qi for help. In order to save the State of Yan, Duke Huan of Qi attacked the Shanrong..."
Beautiful small regular script characters flowed out of his pen smoothly like running water. I wrote what was in my heart. Slowly, Hu Shanwei forgot about the nervousness, forgot that he was in the examination room, forgot the sharp-eyed invigilator, and forgot the trivial troubles at home.
She seemed to have returned to the Hu Family Bookstore on Chengxian Street where she had spent countless days and nights. No matter how busy and bustling the traffic was outside the window, or how the lights were on and the weary birds were returning to their nests, she would sit at the desk, waving the half-worn pen in her hand, copying books day after day.
Yes, Hu Shanwei was an unpaid copyist at home.
In this era, woodblock printing was the mainstream, but those expensive imitation books such as rare, valuable, and special editions were all copied by hand one word at a time.
A good memory is not as good as a bad pen. Hu Shanwei was almost self-taught. Most of the old books in the bookstore have the seal of "Hu's collection of books, thousands of years", which clearly shows that the Hu family is a family with cultural heritage. How did they degenerate into merchants, marry a shrew, and their descendants became copyists
This is really a case of a child without a mother. It’s a long story.
Hu Shanwei was originally from Jining, Shandong.
According to his father Hu Rong's boasting after getting drunk, the Hu family is a century-old scholarly family. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, members of the Hu family served as high-ranking officials in the court.
Later, to avoid the political turmoil in the Yuan Dynasty, the Hu family moved south from Yuan Dadu (now Beiping in the Ming Dynasty) to the stable and prosperous Suzhou. On the way, they encountered several groups of robbers and were "fleeced" time and time again. In the end, all their gold and silver valuables were taken away, leaving the Hu family with only boxes of heavy, "useless" books that could not be eaten or drunk.
Zhang Shicheng, the King of Wu who established his capital in Suzhou at that time, was hospitable and respectful to the wise and humble. Several members of the Hu family were given official positions with salaries sufficient to support their families. The whole family worked hard to get rid of their northern accents and learned to speak the soft Wu dialect. They kept a house full of books, taught the younger generations to study, and planned to settle down in Suzhou and revive their family business.
As the saying goes, if you live by the mountain, you can eat the mountain; if you live by the water, you can eat the water. For a cultured person, the only way is to study and become an official. In the war-torn era, the classics collected by several generations of a family are extremely important.
But the good times did not last long. In the 27th year of Zhizheng, when Hu Shanwei was six years old, Zhu Yuanzhang, who was entrenched in Nanjing and proclaimed himself King of Wu, sent two of his powerful generals, Xu Da and Chang Yuchun, to attack Suzhou and unify the south of the Yangtze River.
There can only be one King of Wu in Jiangnan.
At the beginning, the Hu family had full confidence in Wu Wang Zhang Shicheng, not because the Hu family admired Zhang Shicheng, but because they heard that the other Wu Wang Zhu Yuanzhang was just an illiterate peasant from Fengyang. Most of his so-called fierce generals were also rural kids who used to herd cattle and plow the fields with him.
Simply put, they were just a group of bandits who rose up to have enough food to eat, and they were nothing. The Hu family flipped through the history books in their collection, and found that there was no bandit in history who eventually became an emperor
This has never happened before.
The Hu family was loyal to Zhang Shicheng, who was always writing poems and essays and had a reputation as a virtuous man. Most of the literati from all over the country flocked to this elegant King of Wu.
Therefore, the Hu family ordered their clansmen to stay in Suzhou City and not flee, in order to gain a reputation for loyalty. In the future, if the Hu family members could follow the dragon, they would surely be successful.
The Hu family escaped political turmoil and the robbers' swords and guns, but the arrogance and prejudice of scholars towards farmers brought a devastating disaster to the family!
Suzhou was besieged for three full months. The city walls changed hands several times and corpses were everywhere. Finally, Xu Da and Chang Yuchun entered Suzhou City from Changmen and Qimen respectively.
When the city was broken, Wu Wang Zhang Shicheng asked his wife: "I am defeated and dying, what will you do?"
Madam Liu was Zhang Shicheng's second wife. She was young and beautiful, and gave birth to two little princes.
Zhang Shicheng asked his wife this because at that time, the world in Jiangnan was divided into three parts by Chen Youliang, Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhang Shicheng. Zhu Yuanzhang first destroyed Chen Youliang. Not only that, he also took Chen Youliang's most beautiful concubine, Da, into his own harem and gave birth to three sons in order to humiliate his rival.
Given that Zhu Yuanzhang had a similar hobby as Cao Cao's "I will support your wife and children", Zhang Shicheng was worried that he would be cuckolded like Chen Youliang after his death, so he simply hinted to his young wife to commit suicide.
Madam Liu was a smart woman, and she understood it immediately. She said, "Don't worry, I will never let you down."
Madam Liu held her two young sons in her arms and ordered all the concubines, little princes and princesses in the King of Wu's palace to go into the Qiyun Tower, lock the door, and set it on fire.
The ministers of the Wu Palace saw Qiyun Tower turned into a burning tower, and even the women knew to sacrifice their lives for their country. Xu Da and Chang Yuchun's army were about to attack the palace again, especially Chang Yuchun, who was known as the "killer general". If he encountered a city that refused to surrender, once the city was broken, Chang Yuchun would massacre the city!
This was the consistent style of the killer general Chang Yuchun, without exception. Therefore, when people heard of Chang Yuchun's name, they were frightened and abandoned the city and surrendered.
Suzhou had refused to surrender for three months. How could Chang Yuchun let Suzhou go? He would definitely massacre the city to vent his anger.
Since they were all going to die anyway, the ministers followed their lord Zhang Shicheng and some hanged themselves, some slit their throats, and some scrambled to drink poisoned wine.
All the men in the Hu family who were officials died in this way.
Only Hu Shanwei's father, Hu Rong, was not talented enough to get a job as an official. He was unemployed at home and usually spent his time drawing eyebrows for his wife and teaching his six-year-old daughter to read and write.
When Hu Rong heard that the city had been broken, he quickly put Hu Shanwei into a bookcase, carried him on his back, and fled, taking his wife with him.
Outside, Chang Yuchun began to massacre people crazily, and the city of Suzhou was filled with wailing.
Hu Rong carried his daughter on his back and pulled his wife towards the Reclining Buddha Temple. It was said that Zhu Yuanzhang had been a monk before becoming a bandit, so he was usually very courteous to Buddhists and Taoists. There was a great monk from Jiangnan named Daoyan in the Reclining Buddha Temple, so if they hid in the temple, there was a 80% chance that they could escape the disaster.
But there were too many Suzhou residents who thought this way, and the crowd flowed toward the Reclining Buddha Temple. Hu Rong and his wife were separated, and he could only watch his wife being trampled underfoot by the crowd.
Sitting in the bookcase, Hu Shanwei heard his mother's last words: "Don't worry about me! Take Shanwei and run!"
Chang Yuchun's army in the rear just happened to arrive here. Everyone else ran to the temple, but Zen Master Daoyan from the temple walked against the flow of people, stood guard at the temple gate, and helped up Hu Rong who was lying on the ground crying, and Hu Shanwei who was thrown out of the book box.
Hu Shanwei heard the monk say, "Take the child inside and find a place to hide him."
Hu Rong picked up his daughter, and Hu Shanwei lay on his father's shoulder, seeing that Zen Master Daoyan was like a reef in a torrent, standing still.
What an amazing monk.
After an unknown amount of time, Zen Master Daoyan opened the temple gate and said, "General Xu Da has persuaded Chang Yuchun not to massacre the city. Let's go back."
Hu Rong carried his daughter home trembling with fear, and found that the streets were indeed filled with military orders that read "No massacre in the city, no looting of civilians' property, no harassment of civilians, and those who violate the order will be executed."
Once Xu Da issued the military order, no one dared to disobey, and Suzhou City escaped disaster.
History records: "On the day when Suzhou was captured, Chang Yuchun entered Qi Gate and slaughtered everyone he passed. Xu Da entered Chang Gate and did not kill anyone. When they arrived at the Reclining Buddha Temple, the two generals met, and Da warned Yuchun not to kill anyone."
Behind these simple forty-one words are countless lives and joys and sorrows.
Members of the Hu family either died for their country, were massacred by Chang Yuchun's army, or were trampled to death like Hu Shanwei's mother. This century-old scholarly family from Jining, Shandong was almost wiped out.
His father Hu Rong was frightened. He was afraid that the Hu family's past of serving as officials under Zhang Shicheng would bring disaster, so he simply burned down the Hu family's ancestral hall and family tree to destroy all traces of family inheritance.
Only the books that had been passed down for generations were not dared to be burned, for fear of angering the ancestors of the Hu family.
The following year, Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, naming the country Ming and the reign Hongwu. In the first year of Hongwu, Hu Rong, holding his daughter Hu Shanwei and carrying a boatload of books, came to the emperor's capital, Nanjing. He dared not have anything to do with Suzhou again, for fear that people would bring up old scores.
Hu Rongwen cannot be an official, and Wu cannot be a soldier, but as the only two survivors in the family, his survival skills are still good.
The Imperial College, the Imperial Examination Hall, etc. were all located in Yinglingfang in the northern part of Nanjing, where scholars gathered. Hu Rong opened a bookshop on Chengxian Street in the square and registered as a merchant.
The shop downstairs sells ordinary new books printed by woodblock printing, while the upstairs is filled with out-of-print books accumulated by generations of ancestors, which are only for viewing and not for sale. If customers insist on buying these old books, Hu Rong will sell a one-to-one handwritten copy, which is exactly the same even with occasional typos.
Hu Shanwei started copying books in Tibet when she was six years old. When she was twelve, Hu Rong arranged a marriage for her. The man was a soldier, the same age as her, and a hereditary centurion. He lost his father at the age of seven and inherited his father's official position, receiving a salary of a centurion.
Hu Rong, who was frightened by the extermination of his family, thought that this marriage was a good one. With the future son-in-law's stable salary and hereditary salary, his daughter would have a stable life after marrying him.
After the marriage was arranged, Hu Rong began to prepare a dowry for his daughter. However, when Hu Shanwei was sixteen years old, the man was drafted into the army and went to the battlefield.
Hu Shanwei bid farewell to her fiancé, and what she received was a jar of ashes and an iron army badge with her fiancé's name engraved on it.
Hu Shanwei became a widow, and she waved a paper cutter several times to drive out every person who tried to matchmake for her from the Hu Family Bookstore.
But the matchmaker was really dedicated. When he couldn't persuade the younger one, he decided to matchmake for the older one.
His father, Hu Rong, was thirty-four years old, in the prime of his life, handsome and elegant, with a small fortune and good conditions. The matchmaker introduced Hu Rong to a sixteen-year-old virgin, the daughter of a merchant, a typical Jiangnan girl, Chen.
Since becoming a widow, Hu Shanwei has become more and more silent. Hu Rong hopes that his daughter will find a good man again, but Shanwei refuses. The father and daughter quarrel frequently over this and gradually become alienated.
The youth and beauty of his young wife Chen comforted Hu Rong, who had a rough life, and he gradually began to listen to his wife's words.
At first, Chen tried hard to be a good stepmother, making clothes for Hu Shanwei and cooking. But since Chen became pregnant, especially when the doctor said it was a boy, Chen became a different person and began to abuse Hu Shanwei. Hu Rong was afraid that his young wife would hurt the fetus, so he kept persuading Shanwei to be tolerant.
Hu Shanwei knew it was time to leave this home.
Over the years, Hu Shanwei copied all the books in his collection, but he didn't get paid a penny. Without money, he couldn't survive.
When Hu Shanwei saw the decree issued by Emperor Hongwu to recruit female officials, he thought, here comes the opportunity. I don’t have money, but I have knowledge.